


Small Kindnesses

by Sunnybone



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:00:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21896308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunnybone/pseuds/Sunnybone
Summary: Sylvain and Marianne huddle together after getting separated from the rest of their force after a battle.For Day 1 of the Sylvain Week Holiday Prequel
Relationships: Marianne von Edmund/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 9
Kudos: 73
Collections: Sylvain Week Christmas Prelude 2019





	Small Kindnesses

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1 of the [Sylvain Week Holiday Prequel](https://twitter.com/sylvain_week/status/1205591837425250304?s=20): Presents/Tree
> 
> I followed the prompts very... loosely lmao

“Sorry about this, Marianne,” Sylvain says as he leans heavily on her, hobbling through the copse of trees across rocky ground strewn with a powdery dusting of snow that is starting to stick. He tries not to put too much of his weight on her, the Lance pulsing in his grip as he uses it like a walking stick, but the stab to his thigh makes his leg drag somewhat useless. He finds Marianne is stronger than her small frame looks, taking much more of his weight than he would like.

“It's alright,” Marianne says as she helps him settle under the branches of a pine, turning once she's free of his weight to secure Theophania; his mage-horse is calm despite the blood that soaks her saddle and Marianne's dress, and he can see the set of Marianne's shoulders strengthen as she rubs the mare's nose. “Here,” she says when she returns to him, crouching next to his wounded leg extended before him, “let me heal this.”

He catches her hand with his own, gauntleted and flecked with blood, some his own but most from the bandits they had faced. “Bare minimum, Marianne—I don't think I'm up to lance-work, and I don't have much juice left. If we run into stragglers, you'll need magic left to defend yourself.” He gives her one of his patented smiles, stops just at the edge of a wink, and he sees the little frown that curves her mouth. She'd rather heal him whole, but he won't let her make herself defenseless just so he can be comfortable until their friends find them. She's too precious to too many people to let her get hurt, or worse, over _Sylvain_.

“...Alright,” she says, not very pleased but still quiet and gentle, and he releases her. Marianne rests her hands feather-light over his injury, and he does his best not to hiss; she frowns and whispers an apology anyways, before soft light gleams from her palms and up between her splayed fingers, and the pain of his injury dulls with a wash of warmth as the bleeding stops entirely. His last vulnerary had staunched the worst of it as they had ridden to cover, thank Seiros, but there had still been a slow, oozing trickle, the wound too severe for a mere vulnerary to close.

Marianne can't knit the wound fully, not without exhausting herself—it had been a deep jab, the bandit spear meant for her back rerouted high into his thigh as he had put himself in the way, and the way his leg doesn't work quite right lets him know there is damage to muscle and nerve that will require extensive healing and _bed rest_ ; Byleth is going to be disappointed in him, and _Felix_ is never going to let him hear the end of this.

But Marianne is alive and whole, and that's far more important than any amount of blood or pain or nagging on Sylvain's part.

When she has healed as much as he will allow, she staggers to her feet and he steadies her with a quick hand on her waist. “Are you ok? Did you overdo it?” he asks as she braces herself with one hand to the trunk of the tree, one hand on his forearm. She looks down at him, pretty even with the signs and stresses of battle on her.

“I'm fine, Sylvain, only tired.” The battle had been rough on her, the bandits more numerous than their information suggested, and she had been thrown into the fighting by a sudden ambush. Marianne had been pushed further and further from their main force, and Sylvain had broken away to bring her back, giving command of his battalion over to Ashe. Now she looks down at him with her brown eyes shadowed and her hair in disarray, and he is struck by how much she looks like the ghost of her Academy days.

She sighs and steps away from his hold. “We'll need a fire, it's getting colder and you've lost a lot of blood.” He hums in agreement.

“I have enough magic I think for a little fire spell, if you find suitable wood.” They've had enough survival training for that much, Sylvain as a child in Gautier and Marianne under the professor's watchful eye. Marianne nods and goes to check for wood, though she stays in Sylvain's sight, and before long she returns and they work together to get a small fire going.

They settle together and he watches her shiver even in the cloak she had worn against the winter cold rolling into the mountains, and he sighs. “Here,” he says, shuffling a bit against the trunk of the tree and motioning for her to move in close. The metal of his armor is unbearably cold, but he has layers of padding beneath to trap some warmth, and Marianne is only in her gown and cloak. “I'm not exactly warm, but I'll serve as a wind-break.”

Some of their other lady friends might threaten him against any ulterior motives first, but Marianne just moves in quietly beside him, and he re-settles her cloak around her to block most of his armor before she nestles into his side. He twitches her hood up better around her face and puts his arm around her shoulder, and she turns her head to rest the side against his chest.

It makes something ache, even more so when she drops her hands again to cover his wound against the wind. She gifts him with so many small kindnesses, so much gentleness that it almost stings.

“You shouldn't risk yourself so much, Sylvain,” she says, soft soft _soft_. “People care about you.” He's glad for the layer of armor between them, that she can't hear the terrible pace of his heart. He twitches the edge of her hood further across her cheek and lighter than a whisper or a breath, he brushes lips over the crown of her head, a grateful prayer to a Goddess he's not sure he believes in as he remembers the sight of Marianne locked blade-to-blade with a brigand as the lancer came up behind her.

“People care about you, too, Marianne,” he says, the smallest squeeze of his arm around her shoulder. He knows she doesn't see herself properly, can't see how wonderful her gentleness is, her continuing softness in the face of war, the deep core of strength she has inside under all of her sadness and self-hatred. She pushes on, always trying to do _good_ , because she doesn't believe she _is_ good. Sylvain admires her—all of that pain and she channeled it towards goodness, while he has only been selfish and destructive.

“I wish you didn't have to fight in this war,” he says after a long silence, his voice low and rough, and he feels her flinch through the hands on his thigh. She is meant for better than battlefields where the mud is churned with blood.

“I don't,” she says, her head rocking against his chest in a little shake. “Have to. But I want to be here, to do what I can to _help_ , and... and help people I care about.” Marianne tips her head back to look at him, and he marvels at how beautiful she is—her cheeks and nose are pink from the cold, and her eyes seem luminous under the sweep of her lashes.

It hits Sylvain like lightning that he could kiss her right now—that she might _welcome_ that—but he only lifts a hand and trails a finger down her cheek, smiling soft and wondering. Maybe soon he _will_ kiss her, properly when they're not huddled under a tree and covered in his blood. When he feels a bit more worthy of this further, beautiful kindness she is gifting him, her soft and loving regard as she leans her cheek into the palm he places there.

Instead he fixes her hood again and snugs her against him until their friends arrive, Flayn clucking over his injury as Felix, predictably, calls him every kind of idiot for getting hurt at all. But Marianne rides back with him on Theophania after Flayn has healed his leg enough, and the feel of her warm and alive in his arms keeps a smile on his face, nagging or not.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you liked it!
> 
> Find me on Twitter [@AceMorningStar](https://twitter.com/AceMorningStar)


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